LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — Bureaucracy is suffocating us all

The article “Northern Ontario mining group urges public support of initiatives” (T.N.M., June 21/93) was interesting in that I lived through, and was a participant in, the malaise which it describes so well.

The bureaucratic costs (associated with governmental regulators) were not sudden. They resulted from labor-management confrontation, along with royal commission and committee studies designed not to solve problems but merely to keep a lid on controversy for political purposes.

The costs associated with the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) show that the original intent for forming the board has been lost in bureaucratic empire-building, which is a common disease in our democratic system of government.

Accidental injury suffered by reason of employment can easily be assumed to be the complete responsibility of the employer. By taking accident claims out of the courts, injured workers were looked after quickly and with dignity, returning to their jobs when ready. In case of death, families were compensated quickly.

However, through political and bureaucratic interference, the WCB has been turned into nothing more than a self-serving machine out of control. Bureaucracies merely use the political system to their own advantage. Part of the universal disease of our political system is that the “rights” of different groups dominate all discussion, while the “responsibility” that automatically accompanies such rights is ignored. Under such circumstances, dialogue is meaningless.

The problems so ably outlined by the North Superior Mine Managers Group form only one of the anchors tied to Canadians that will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to compete globally.

R.W. Thompkins

Professor Emeritus

Mining Engineering

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ont.